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The Man Who Is India's Future Has His Own Checkered Past

Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and India's next prime minister Narendra Modi greets the gathering at the home of his 90-year-old mother in Gandhinagar, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, Friday, May 16, 2014.

Image: Saurabh Das/Associated Press

By Suhrith Parthasarathy2014-05-16 21:02:42 UTC

CHENNAI, India — Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi is poised to become India’s new prime minister as his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured one of India’s most decisive elections in more than a quarter century. Modi and the BJP will take over a government that's not only besieged with charges of corruption and nepotism, but one that's also accused of slowing India’s economic growth.

The 550 million votes that were cast over a six-week period were counted on Friday. The BJP is expected to win 282 of the 543 seats to the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of Parliament. The victory means the toppling of the Indian National Congress (INC), which has led India for most of the past 67 years.

In what is a first since the election succeeding the 1984 assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, a single party — the BJP — has emerged with a majority. Its victory, while partly a product of poor governance by the outgoing United Progressive Alliance (headed by the INC), has been secured by the impressive nation-wide campaign led by Modi, who will take over as India’s 14th prime minister.

BJP workers celebrating as election results showed a landslide win for BJP led NDA on May 16, 2014 in Ranchi, India.

Image: Diwakar Prasad/Hindustan Times via Getty Images

Modi’s rise from a questionable past

Modi is a hugely divisive figure. His rise to the top has been both improbable and meteoric. As a young boy who helped his father sell tea in a small town in the western Indian state of Gujarat, he was enamored by the philosophy of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The RSS is a Hindu right-wing organization that has drawn inspiration from, among others, Nazi Germany.

He spent his initial years running chores for the RSS top brass, but Modi slowly began to gain a reputation as a conscientious worker with a keen eye for politics. In 1985, the RSS lent Modi to the BJP, a party closely aligned to the Sangh in ideology. Here, Modi steadily rose up the ranks, using his excellent organizational abilities to help strategize victories for the party in Gujarat.

Narendra Modi greets supporters after casting his vote in Gujarat state elections in December 2002.

In 2001, Modi became the chief minister of Gujarat, a role somewhat akin to the governor of an American state. He won three consecutive terms in the state, largely campaigning on a supposed plank of economic growth and industrialization. But his time as chief minister of Gujarat is marred by a statewide riot in 2002 in which nearly 1,000 people, mostly Muslim, were massacred by Hindu mobs.

Hindu mobs attacked Muslims across Gujarat in February and March 2002, burning homes and businesses in deadly riots. Modi has never apologized nor taken responsibility for the tragedy.

Image: Manish Swarup/Associated Press

Critics allege that Modi oversaw the riots by offering — if not explicit support — a tacit approval to the mob. He is yet to be completely exonerated of all wrongdoing even though a special investigation team, appointed by India’s Supreme Court, has found the evidence against him to be insufficient. The report, however, has been criticized for ignoring a “wide spectrum of disturbing circumstantial evidence.” Modi has, so far, offered no apology — let alone an explanation — for the incident.

The campaign

In his campaign for the recent elections, Modi restricted his pitch to the economy. He promised to build new roads, expand India’s manufacturing capacity, plug inflation and create jobs for the struggling masses. For a newly formed middle class, suddenly hampered by a flailing economy, Modi’s vision offers a fresh hope.

India's middle class believes that, as an authoritarian figure, Modi can help cut red tape and control corruption. In Gujarat, according to many popularaccounts, Modi has helped revive a flailing economy. India’s young voters, disillusioned by the ruling Congress party’s indecision and dishonesty, expect Modi to replicate Gujarat’s success across the nation.

Modi’s critics, however, worry that he will further polarize the country and will do little to assuage the fears of the minority population. Even in his native state, Muslims feel unequal. They believe the growth of the state has been non-inclusive. In fact, according to some critics, the figures presented by the Gujarat government exaggerate the growth made by the state.

Modi’s policies, as the nobel lauerate economist Amartya Sen has argued, however suffers from a lack of social welfare. Gujarat lags behind, in Sen'e estimation in the fields of education and healthcare and breeds greater gender inequality than many other Indian states.

Modi and the U.S.

In 2005, the U.S. government denied Modi a visa to visit the country over his suspected role in the 2002 riots in Gujarat. Shortly after the riots, the New York Times asked Modi if he wished he had handled the riots any differently. He told the newspaper that his only regret was that he failed to handle the media better.

''We have 18,600 villages,'' he told the Times. ''Ninety-eight percent of Gujarat was peaceful. Is it not a credit for the administration, the government?''

But Modi’s relationship with the U.S. already appears to be changing. He met with the U.S. Ambassador to India in February, and on Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry congratulated Modi, tweeting that he looks forward to “growing shared prosperity.”

Congrats to @narendramodi and BJP. Look forward to working w/you/growing shared prosperity/security w/world's largest democracy.

What does India have in store?

In granting the BJP a huge mandate, voters have looked beyond Modi’s fundamental philosophical leanings and his flawed record in ensuring a secular atmosphere. This might ensure a stable government with a wherewithal to fix the economy. But if Modi feels compelled to return to his Hindu national past (which many believe is an integral part of his governance model), this might also prove too costly for India’s status as a liberal, inclusive society.

Suhrith Parthasarathy is a lawyer and journalist based in Chennai, India. He can be reached on Twitter @suhrith.

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